Ride-Along With Arizona Police (rare access)

[music plays]
[officer outside speaking indistinctly]
[Officer Ellis] What’s up, bud?
How you doing, man?
-Good, sir.
-What’s happening?
[Officer] He pulled out two,
he said he chews on it.
-Okay.
[man] I’m washing windows
in this lane right here.
[Peter] We were just on our way
to start this video
-…and got called in.
-What’s your first name.
-We’re here with Officer Ellis, today.
-…Jamal, I’m Jared.
And in with the Glendale Police Department
which is very difficult these days
to get in with a police force.
-Are you on probation,
or parole, or anything?
-Probation.
-Probation? Okay.
[man rambling incoherently]
[Officer Ellis] That altered straw,
that’s commonly used to smoke Fentanyl.
He’s diagnosed with schizophrenia
and a bunch of other things.
He appears the might be off
his meds and they’ll a lot of times
substitute their medication with
Fentanyl or methamphetamine.
How does that work with
the City of Glendale or Phoenix
which is right next to you?
Is there mental health facilities
that can take care of these guys
or how does that work?
Yeah, absolutely. So there’s several–
-This is what he’s doing.
-Oh, okay.
There’s several different companies.
-But it has to be their decision, right?
-Yeah.
-We’re not gonna scoop somebody up…
-Okay.
-…just because we think
they should do something.
Everybody can do whatever they want.
Jamal, you’re free to go.
You didn’t steal those did you?
No sir, I just borrowed them.
-You borrowed it?
-You gotta take ’em back.
-Use the crosswalk, all right?
-Yeah, be careful.
Take those back.
-[coins fall]
-Hang on. No, no, no.
You gotta wait for the walk sign, man.
[man mumbles incoherently]
[Officer Ellis groans]
He’s gonna press the button for you.
-[Peter] Can I follow across the street?
-Yeah.
-Okay, I’m gonna see if he takes it back.
[taps on button repeatedly]
[Officer Ellis] Grab your bucket,
take it back.
-[speaking incoherently]
-All right, buddy.
[Peter] You got it back.
There you go, man.
[Peter] Well guys,
this is just two minutes in.
Glendale, Arizona.
-All right, Officer Ellis.
-How was your run?
[Peter laughs]
-Wow.
-Yeah, it’s a shame, isn’t it?
It’s an every day occurrence honestly.
The Fentanyl problem is pretty bad.
Not just in Glendale but nationwide.
Last I’ve been told,
the average price the Fentanyl pills
range from about 30 cents
to a dollar a piece.
So they’re really inexpensive
to buy on the street.
-Okay, so cheaper than water basically?
-[sighs] Yeah.
A lot of this stuff comes from Mexico.
It’s not far to get it across here
and it’s easily and readily accessible.
I would tell you that it’s safe to say
we respond as a police department
in Glendale to at least
one to two overdoses a day easily.
-How many of those lead to deaths?
That’s a great question.
Luckily with Narcan
and those kinds of other things
they’re able to reverse
a lot of that but…
-Do you have Narcan with you?
-I do, yeah.
We all carry it.
So I heard there’s more money
at the federal level
being put towards this issue
but I don’t know what’s happening
or what strategies
are being implemented or…
You would think 110,000
died last year roughly to ODs…
Is it really?
The thing is too, it’s not just in cities.
I go as far out in the middle of nowhere
Alaska and this problem exists there too.
-Really?
-It’s not anyone’s immune.
Yeah, it’s all over the country.
If there was a war, right,
and 110,000 people died…
If we got attacked for example,
there would be a lot of
attention put on that, right?
It doesn’t seem like
a big talking point these days.
[Officer Ellis] This apartment complex here
was a big call for service generator
for us for a long time.
-Is this Section 8 or what is it?
-Yeah.
The city stepped in a couple times,
forced the owners to make some changes.
They condemned a lot of the apartments.
In fact they still did.
This development obviously is new.
That wasn’t here
until probably the last year
when they started cracking down
on this apartment complex.
We used to have shootings in here
several times a week.
-A week?
-Oh, yeah.
This complex used to have 24 hour
armed security and unfortunately
not a lot of cooperation, right?
You’d get here and there’s
shell casings all over the ground.
There’s obviously some kind of gunfire
that was exchanged
and nobody saw anything.
-So gunfire between the apartments?
-Mm-hmm, yeah.
[Peter] Okay, when I was in
South Central Los Angeles
most locals want more policing…
-…except for the criminals.
-I agree with that 100%
[Officer Ellis] I think some people
in neighborhoods
where there is a lot of crime,
they’re afraid to talk to the police
’cause they don’t want retribution.
We’re just visiting, we come in, take care
of business, and we’re out of here.
-Right.
-They have to live here.
[dogs barking]
Easy job would you say, officer?
Uh, it has its days.
I’ve definitely worked harder
for a lot less.
Uh, like physically I wouldn’t tell you
it’s the most demanding thing.
Just being out here in the heat
wearing all the armor and stuff…
-How much does that vest weigh?
-Just under 40 pounds.
There’s times that you struggle
with somebody or get in some kind of fight
but it’s more mentally
and stress demanding than anything else.
When have you called the police
’cause you’re having a good day?
-Never, right?
-Yeah.
Most of the stuff we go to we’re
dealing with somebody on their worst day.
Right before I picked you up
I helped another officer
at the Circle K at 59th Avenue
and Camelback.
They had guy come in, was being
belligerent towards staff this morning.
Didn’t really commit a crime,
was just being aggressive
and he left before the officer got there.
They called back about 45 minutes later,
the guy was now in the store
just taking food off the shelves
and eating it in the store
and not paying for any of it,
and then was trying to leave
as I got there I found him
like half a block away.
He was cooperative
but we arrested him for shoplifting.
-Okay, so a place like this Circle K,
how often is something
like that happening?
-Often.
-A daily occurrence?
-Yessir.
How do these businesses handle that?
[sighs] They lean on us to step up our,
what we call self-initiated contacts.
I mean you’ll see here you’ve got
all this trash on the side of the road.
If we go and start looking through there
I guarantee you we will find
the altered plastic straws
that I talked about earlier
consistent with Fentanyl use.
A lot of it stems from the drugs
unfortunately.
And the homelessness.
-I mean I can’t imagine what that’s like.
-Yeah.
-Not having a place to go every day and–
-It’s 105 out.
It’s 105 degrees out.
I can’t imagine
staying out here all day and night.
Not knowing where your next meal
comes from, that’s gotta be tough.
The housing market has played a part.
Arizona’s very expensive
to live in anymore
but there’s definitely resources
out there, help out there,
people have to want to utilize that.
We’re just making a quick turn
’cause we’re heading to another call to
there’s a loose German shepherd
running around
and it’s limping in the park.
Another unit’s out there
trying to catch it
and we’re gonna go see
if we can’t help out.
-Is that your favorite part of the job?
-It really is.
-Dog catching?
-Yeah.
I have four dogs of my own so yeah,
I don’t mind at all.
[Officer Ellis] Oh, looks like they got him.
Let’s see.
[officer] So after a lengthy foot pursuit
of juking…
-Aw.
-We finally tired her out enough
to where she just hopped in Tiffany’s car.
We’ve been chasing her for 30 minutes.
-Don’t forget officer sustained an injury.
-Tiffany sustained an injury
in the line of duty.
She’s a sweetheart, she’s really skiddish.
[Peter] Jut a runaway dog?
-Somebody saw here at 7:00
in the morning, called it in,
we found her over there.
She’s been dodging us the entire time.
-So do you bring her to
the Humane Society or what do you do?
-We have this gentleman–
-Oh, okay.
Take her back, scan her for a microchip,
see if we can get her back home,
and if not we’ll take her
to Maricopa County.
[Tiffany] You want any water
or do these guys make you nervous?
-Say, “They make me nervous.”, I know.
[Officer Ellis] This is how
I ended up with one of my dogs.
[Peter] Officer, that is so cool
that this infrastructure exists.
-Yeah.
-I gotta say
that’s a first world country thing.
You take it for granted until you live
in a country where if there’s a stray dog
you know, that things
going in the ditch and nobody cares.
-Yeah.
[Peter] Something else
going on here in the park.
Some Fentanyl foil?
Fentanyl blue, and meth.
-Okay.
-What’s blue?
It’s basically the slang term
for the Fentanyl pills.
Okay.
See these? Got the M on this side,
it’ll say 30 on this side.
This is what I talked about
with the black streaks
and how they use them with
the straw and the foil and then…
-This gentleman here
says he’ll take care of that dog.
I believe in that bag
we have some methamphetamine.
Which will be a white
crystal-like substance.
-Okay.
So you see a lot of this?
They come into a nice park like this,
sit at the table, do some Fentanyl?
Yeah, this is an every day occurrence.
Officer Mills, Officer Jackson,
Sergeant McDonald here
are part of our misdemeanor
repeat offender program.
They do a lot of reach out stuff
offering services.
Which honestly many times are denied
Sorry, declined…
On their part not on ours
for whatever reason and…
-Well the reason is they’re on the drugs
and don’t want to get out of them, right?
What is the penalty like this?
Somebody gets caught
doing Fentanyl in the park, what happens?
This will be a Class 4 Felony
for the narcotic drug possession
and a Class 6 Felony for the paraphernalia
that accompanies it.
Paraphernalia on its own
is typically a class one
but when it’s combined with drugs
it becomes a Class 6 Felony.
So it’ll be 2 felony charges.
Three actually for whoever had
the meth as well as the blues.
[Officer] We’re gonna head over this way,
okay?
-Geez.
Fentanyl is the most evil thing I’ve seen
in 25 years of being a cop.
-When did it really start taking off?
[Officer Ellis] I’d say about four years ago.
-Yeah, four years ago.
-Yeah.
So you can’t really see it
with your camera
but you can actually
kind of feel it if you want to
-It’s a rock-like substance.
-Yeah, what is that?
-That’s gonna be crystal meth.
-Okay.
We have a machine at the jail that’ll
test this called the TruNarc machine.
Basically shoots a laser into it
and compares it
to its library of chemicals
and it’ll tell us what it is
and then we’ll send it to a lab
to actually get it scientifically analyzed
but that is good enough for a charging
decision for a presumptive test.
-Oh, geez.
And on a side note,
if you ever need a pen in life
you just have to ask a
Glendale Police officer.
-You guys come equipped.
-Yeah.
They are well-prepared.
Well he should be
’cause he’s brand new and in training.
So he should have a plethora of pens
and he’s probably learning fro his FTO.
-You’re in training? That’s great.
-I am.
Did you always want to be an officer?
I wanted to be a professional soccer
player, I made it as far as semi-pro
but I got a couple ride alongs
with Glendale and I loved it.
-Cool.
So how is recruitment these days?
Getting new officers,
is it a challenge in Glendale?
It’s a challenge for everybody.
-Everybody?
-Yeah.
It’s not just us, just Phoenix,
not just Arizona, it’s all over.
Everybody’s hiring ’cause the economy…
You name it,
being unmotivated to be a police officer.
It’s a rough time. It’s not for everybody.
It’s gotten to the point where
most departments now
offer like a signing bonus.
That was unheard of
five years ago when I started.
Like it was you had 300 people
testing for three positions.
Now we have three people
testing for 300 positions.
It’s kind of a huge role reversal.
It’s not that bad,
that’s a little dramatic
but it’s kind of along those lines
to where every department now
is offering incentives to say,
“Hey, come work for us.”
“We have take home cars
or sign on bonuses of $10,000.”
or officers get a referral bonus
if we get somebody through the process.
We get police officers from other states
’cause they want to work
in a different policing environment.
-So they move halfway across the country.
-Yes.
-Is it pretty pro-police here in Glendale?
-Yes.
Our council, and our chiefs,
and our mayor, are hugely supportive.
-That’s why I’m allowed to make a video?
-Probably.
I can tell you that during COVID
and when this anti-police narrative
started getting pushed around the country
our council and our mayor
actually made a video disputing that
and praising their support us
and the job we do here in Glendale.
[Officer Ellis] So instead of taking all of their
property down to the jail and log it
they allowed this gentleman here
to take care of their stuff
and watch their stuff
until they get out of jail.
-Are you friends with those guys?
-Yeah.
They just fell on some hard times
or what?
-Yeah, we all have.
Matter of fact,
I just got out of rehab two weeks ago.
-You’ve been clean two weeks?
-Yeah.
-Good for you.
How do you do it? Day by day?
[exhales] It was rough.
And I really wasn’t using that much, so…
-What were you using, Fent?
-Yeah.
-It’s tough to get off, huh?
-Oh, God.
I had a knee replacement
and they had me on Percocet.
After that, I…
-Prescription ran out
and then went from there…
-…to the street pharmacy so to speak?
-Yeah.
The pain goes away
and you’re able to be normal–
-For a short time though, right?
You don’t even get high anymore.
It just…
-It doesn’t last very long, right?
-Right.
From my understanding that’s why
you get people out here that’ll use.
I’ve had people tell me
they use up to 30 or 40 a day.
-I was using maybe three a day.
-Okay.
-And it… it got me so hard.
-I bet.
-I was sweating when I was kicking it.
-Sure.
At 12 years old my dad
shot and killed my mom in front of me.
-Jesus.
Took a 12 gauge from me to you
and took the back side of this ear
to the front side of this ear off.
I’ve been totally screwed up
for a lot of years.
-Wow.
-Nobody every got me any help.
So I’ve been
self-medicating myself for years.
-Sure.
-And I’m tired of it.
-Yeah.
Because I don’t care if I have to walk
where I’m going
-I’m free.
-Yep.
[Peter] ‘Cause you did 17 and a half years
in prison, right?
Yeah.
-And now life is–
-For drugs.
Oh, for drugs.
I did some alien smuggling,
some coyoteing.
Made $32,000 in three months.
-Bringing illegals over the border?
-Right.
But the three years I did…
that’s nothing.
So I’m finally waking up.
[Officer Ellis] I can’t remember what they say
the average is anymore
of how many times somebody goes to rehab
before they actually finally kick it.
I feel like it’s over ten relapses before
they’ll actually kick a habit like that.
-Wow.
-Fentanyl’s such a nasty thing, like, eh…
Unfortunately we’ll probably
see him again not in a great way.
-His chances are low?
I mean it’s up to him but the area that
he’s in, hanging out with people that…
I mean they both had Fentanyl
and methamphetamine.
He’s got a history of it.
Yeah, the chances are good that…
You know, he’s working on 30 days sober.
I mean I’d love to say that the chances
are higher that he doesn’t relapse
but statistically speaking…
-So how do you do it emotionally?
Like say you create a
connection with someone.
You’re in the community,
you’re seeing them all the time.
It’s hard, man. It’s difficult.
Really is.
Um…
-Like how do you
distance yourself from it?
[sighs] You kinda compartmentalize
a lot, right?
We help where we can
but we’re not miracle workers.
We’re just people
trying to do a job, right?
I can only do so much.
The…
It kinda goes the old saying, right,
“Lead a horse to water,
can’t make him drink.”
We as a police department
can offer resources.
We can be tough on crime
and crack down on all this stuff
but if somebody’s not…
Like we talked about intrinsic motivation.
If somebody’s not wanting
to do that for themselves,
how do you force them to do it?
You can’t.
[Officer Ellis sighs with disappointment]
-So where are we right now?
-We are going into our city jail.
[Officer Ellis] Whatchu got?
We have John,
I’ll kinda brief you over here real quick.
So we have two different cases,
one from this morning, John.
He was caught with urban camping,
drug paraphernalia,
he’s currently struggling
with drug addiction.
Tell Peter what urban camping is
for the City of Glendale.
So urban camping would be something…
Someone like,
let’s just say a tent or something.
-Okay.
Sleeping bags,
shopping carts, things of that nature.
-So in Glendale
you can remove them every day?
So contacted.
So in Glendale we have a city code
that’s a city ordinance for urban camping.
So we go out there
and at least try to provide resources.
In this instance you guys just came out
with the two that we contacted.
Myself and now Sergeant Brooks,
we contacted them about three weeks ago.
Same area, same alleyway,
still doing drugs.
At one point we arrested one,
the male individual and then we,
it’s called CLD, issued a citation.
-And a little detention for the female.
-Mm-hmm.
We provided resources at that time,
they both refused it.
So at this point it’s just
the choice whether they’re wanting
to continue to use and
abuse the drugs out there.
So it kinda leaves us no option.
Especially at the park. You have kids
around and everything like that.
-What happens since they were
already caught a few weeks ago?
They were out there doing the same thing,
what happens this time to them?
More than likely the same process.
They’re gonna see a judge.
The male individual,
he saw a judge last arrest, got OR’d.
-Which he got released.
-[Officer Ellis] Without paying a bond.
-Own recognizance.
-Own recognizance, yeah.
[Officer Ellis] A promise that he’ll show up
for his court date.
-Okay, so he’s gonna go
in front of the judge again?
Correct.
-Maybe a different judge or the same?
[Officer Ellis] A different judge.
Gonna be a different judge now
because they’re felony charges.
So you have possession of narcotic drugs,
possession of dangerous drugs,
then you also have drug paraphernalia.
-What do you think will happen?
More than likely they’ll see a judge,
probably get OR’d again more than likely.
How many times can they
get OR’d before they’re actually
completely removed from the park?
-That’s a… Well, from the park?
-Yeah, from doing drugs in the park.
They’re gonna keep going back
to the park unfortunately
until they get clean
and get the resources.
That’s our main goal is trying
to get them resources, cleaned up.
-Yeah.
But unfortunately it’s a choice
they need to want for themselves.
So what does that do to you guys?
I mean they weren’t violent
which makes it easier obviously
but if you keep seeing this over and over
in front of you what are your feelings?
Definition of insanity, right?
We’re doing the same thing over
and over again expecting different results
and that’s not reality.
-So what would, in your perfect world,
I want the police officer perspective,
what would happen in this circumstance?
Uh, to be honest with you, probably some
type of mandation of trying for rehab.
I think it’s gonna be the biggest one.
-They would need mandatory rehab, right?
-100%
Whether they go through the courts
or something along those lines.
I think that’s gonna be your best bet.
Majority of people that
we come in contact with
are on probation, they’re on parole.
It’s one of those things
where they violate it
and unfortunately it’s
out of our hands after the arrest.
It’s one of those things where
we could at least make a
difference right then and there.
Whether it’s with the businesses
that are having issues with people
continuously shoplifting,
abusing drugs right in front.
-Defecating on their property.
-Defecating, that’s the biggest one too.
That gives peace of mind for
business owners as well as the community.
There’s three of ’em in the slots.
They’re willing to go if you want .
-I have an interview room.
-Yeah, we can do that.
We can set that up for an interview
if you guys are interested.
-Hi Peter.
-How you doing?
-Hey, I’m a huge fan.
-Oh, thanks, officer, ‘preciate it.
I’m a fan of you guys.
-I watch your videos all the time.
-Now you’re in it.
Oh yeah, there it is.
[Peter] So this is what
a city jail looks like?
This is a very small facility.
We only hold people for up to 24 hours.
Any arrest we make
after 9:00 in the morning,
our court time is 9:00, right?
So any misdemeanor or arrest we make
after 9:00, they stay here overnight
until 9:00 the next morning
when they get seen
and then anybody for a felony charge,
they’re processed here and then
there are several transports a day,
they’ll get moved out
to the county facility.
-John, this is Peter.
-How you doing, John?
-Nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you.
-He does his own YouTube channel.
Um, he is riding with me today.
We’re talking to people
in different situations.
He’s getting kinda our perspective
on how things go as the police
and he’s talking to everybody else
as far as perspective on
like kinda your story, man.
So if you want to talk to him and tell him
whatever, it’s completely…
It’s your story so you’re
free to tell him what you’d like, okay?
So you don’t have to talk to him at all
if you don’t want,
if you want to, go for it, man.
It’s your time, so…
I’m gonna step out.
-You wanna tell your story?
-It’s a long story.
-You’re cool with being on camera, right?
-You’re good, bud.
How long have you been on for, using?
-Hmm, since 17.
Started back in the day
with OC’s, Oxycontin.
-Okay.
-Progressed to heroin,
and then the blues came out,
and when the blues came out, it hit hard.
-The what?
-The blues, sorry.
-Oh, the blue Fentanyl pills?
-Yeah, you know it?
Every single bus stop
you see people smoking it.
It’s just disgusting, you know,
but it just became…
Kind of like a normal thing out there.
It’s crazy, the streets
became flooded with them.
-When did it really start to change,
get flooded, would you say?
-Man, year and a half ago, two years ago.
-That’s it?
It’s big. It’s really big. It’s a mess.
It’s really rough, there’s
a lot of homelessness out there.
Like 75% of the people that get arrested
in Glendale, you know, gotta be homeless.
Just from what I’ve seen on the streets.
But really the powder is the major issue.
-The powder? What, coke? What’s powder?
-Fentanyl powder.
-Oh, okay.
-Yeah, that’s the real sh*t.
That’s killing people.
Me personally,
I’ve saved eight people this year.
-Saved eight people with Narcan?
-Plenty of Narcan everywhere, dog.
That’s just the way of life, man.
-So what’s the solution to this?
-Hmm.
It’s bigger than me, bud.
It’s bigger than me.
Maybe, um…
Mandatory rehab for some people, you know?
-Mandatory?
-Yeah, I think so.
I think you should either
go to a jail cell or go to rehab.
Some sort of detox facility first
and then 30, 60, or 90 days of rehab.
Do you think most homeless
in Glendale, Phoenix, are homeless
because of drugs or mental issues?
-100%.
-100%, yeah.
-Is that a silly question?
-100% of them?
-More than likely 100% of them.
So you wouldn’t see any homeless people
out there not on drugs?
-Never… or alcohol.
There’s always somebody using something
just to cope with being homeless.
It’s hot, you know?
It’s really hard every day.
-But does the drugs
leads to the homelessness
or the homelessness leads to the drugs?
-They go hand in hand.
They go hand in hand and it’s kinda like
they kinda feed each other, you know?
Homelessness feeds the drug addiction,
the drug addiction fuels the homelessness.
-What would you tell someone
who’s young, just started Fent?
-Just don’t. Don’t do it.
Find another outlet, you know?
I find that taking care of my body is
the best way, working out, sports, yeah?
No worries.
I try to take care of myself.
I eat, hydrate, stuff like that.
Important.
You know, I appreciate you though.
-No, thanks for sharing your story.
This is the only way
these messages get out.
-That’s why I do this.
-Exactly. Exactly.
– [Officer Ellis] Greg, do you wanna talk?
-[Greg] Ready for me?
-Yessir.
[Peter] So officer,
your title, specialization here?
So I’m with the misdemeanor
repeat offender program.
You were just speaking off-camera about
a program here that’s quite robust.
-Correct.
-How does that go again?
So it’s Phoenix Rescue Mission
and what they do is
they have residential…
It’s almost like a campus.
So like a big condominium complex per see.
And what they do is invite you to move in,
you get your own little place,
you just unplug for a few months.
You just get your head right,
get rebalanced out, you know?
Once you get back to normal they identify
what would be a good fit
for a future career for you.
So if you wanna be CDL certified,
I always use the joke in Arizona
if you want to be an underwater welder
they’ll figure out a way
for you to be an underwater welder.
So their goal is
after a 12 month program
is have you certified
and have you have a very well-paying job.
So you can move on from the program
and lead a good life.
-Oh, wow.
Yeah, and we work with them quite a bit.
-City of Phoenix funds that?
I don’t know who funds it.
Uh…
They’re based in Phoenix.
I don’t know if the city funds them
but they’re based in Phoenix
and they’re just a great group.
-So there is no reason to be homeless here
if you don’t want to be?
Correct.
-Like you are taken care of in this area?
-Correct.
And if you… I always say whatever
your issue is, if I don’t know what it is
I’ll figure out how to find it
but generally it’s shelter,
it’s mental health, it’s drug treatment,
and we have all of those
free of charge for anybody.
-I asked this guy John in the cell.
-Uh-huh.
I said, “Is it the drugs
that makes people homeless
or the homelessness that
makes people drug addicts?”.
Right, what did he say?
He said they both work together.
He didn’t give a clear answer.
I would… and I have
personal experience with this…
-Yeah, from your perspective.
-Yeah, so…
The drugs create the homelessness
in my opinion
and I have personal experience with that.
I’ll be honest with you,
one of my best friends in
the world is a meth addict
and he has been in and out of prison
more times than I know, you know?
He was recently in
for a pretty violent crime.
and he’s probably one of
the best people you would ever meet
but the drugs have a hold on him.
So I kind of understand that side of it
and I don’t hold judgement on anybody.
So when I talk to people out there,
and I’m kinda known out there anyway.
People know they can talk to me
and I’m not going to hold judgement on you
because I know just because you’re
on drugs doesn’t make you a criminal,
doesn’t make you a horrible person,
you just made a horrible
mistake that got ahold of you and
let’s try to fix it, you know?
[Greg] I am the unofficial
outreach person for Glendale.
-So I handle the outreach for the city.
-Okay.
The City of Glendale,
we try to kind of keep the scale even.
We have outreach but we also have
accountability in Glendale.
-I’m sorry, you’ve been
an officer since when?
It’ll be 16 years next month.
Every city has issues and whatnot
but I really noticed around 2019,
for lack of a better word,
the Skid Row effect coming to Glendale
and I was just like everybody else.
I’m like, “Why don’t these people
get help? What’s the issue?”.
-Okay.
-When I really started diving into it,
there wasn’t a whole lot of help
for them out there.
-Okay.
-I made it kinda my mission
to locate services.
I did what’s called
a human services coalition meeting,
and I basically get
all the providers in one room
and I say, “Okay, you guys
specialize in drug treatment,
you guys don’t, but you do mental health,
you don’t do either but you do shelter.”
So on and so forth.
I said, “Let’s all get together
and know who each other are
so there’s no wrong door.
In all your years of policing you’re
saying you really saw it take off in 2019?
-About 2019.
-Okay.
I remember driving around
and I kinda feel like just nationwide
it became like it’s nationwide,
what are we going to do?
-And…
-And what are we doing as a nation?
I think as a nation we’re accepting it.
I think the pendulum
is kind of shifting a little bit.
Okay.
But at the time everybody was like,
“It’s a national crisis.”
“What are we going to do?”
and my answer to that was,
“Why don’t we be
the innovators for change?”.
Let’s do it the right way,
let’s be the model as a department.
We look at other departments
and they’re doing something,
let’s model ourself after that
and implement that.
So you said things really changed
just a few years ago.
I look around Downtown Glendale,
I was in some rougher parts this morning.
-But this looks really nice.
-Right.
And there wasn’t too long ago
where you woulda seen
a lot of activity right here in this park.
And our city hall’s right here.
It’s under construction right now.
But our city hall is here
and the epidemic was here.
There’s things we put into place.
Again, outreach and accountability.
It’s not illegal to be homeless,
if you’re homeless
we’re more than happy to help you,
but we are gonna hold you accountable
if you commit criminal activity.
-You got a cooling center?
-Yes, we have cooling centers
throughout Glendale.
If you need to escape the heat.
We’re gonna have to make our way back
because my camera is going to overheat.
-Okay.
-[both chuckle]
[officer] This is Jax.
[Peter] Oh, yeah.
How many dogs do you have?
-We have five.
-Five, okay.
[Peter] That’s so cool.
-Auto, you’re gonna burn your feet.
-So are you using the dogs
mostly for drug busts?
No, he’s dual purpose.
So he’s used to hunt, find bad guys,
bite them when he finds them,
and then he’s also a narc dog.
So he’ll find narcotics as well.
-That’s awesome,
do you love working with the dogs?
Yeah, it’s rewarding
and I get to go to all the cool stuff.
Like the guy I was just chasing,
if he got away, we’d use him to find him.
-Does Jax stay here at night?
-No, no, he goes home with me.
-No way.
He’s basically like having
another kid I take to work every day
-That’s your full-time partner?
-Full-time partner.
-Thank you, take care.
-You’re welcome.
-That is so cool.
-Oh, yeah.
…at one time and if I had an opportunity
to do it I would jump on it.
I really would.
[Peter] Oh, this is fascinating.
So all the cameras
up on light posts or whatever,
they all come in here and you’re
monitoring or what’s going on?
-Traffic cameras are all placed
in traffic positions
and we have access to piggy back off them.
What we do is,
as you see up here where the map is
calls for service come out
and when the call comes out
we will indicate where
and if there’s a camera nearby.
If there’s a camera
we turn and zoom in.
Take this bus stop sign, as I zoom in
you can see the quality of our cameras.
-Oh, wow.
-So I can tell you right now what
the phone number is for that bus. [laughs]
Again, I can zoom on these signs
so you can imagine like license plates.
You have your armed robberies,
shopliftings, wrecks, hit and runs.
If I can get that vehicle
and start tracking it
smoothness of the camera wise and quality,
I can get to a plate, get information.
Which just leads to our success,
leads to apprehensions,
leads to our solvability rate.
-You can see Fentanyl foil
from this camera, right?
-There’s a good chance you can.
Yeah, for sure.
-But you can see up here on the map side.
-Yeah.
You can see for us as I zoom out
you can see all our camera feeds.
These are all cameras.
-This is all Glendale here?
-So Glendale is a big L.
So this is all of Glendale right here.
-Okay, that’s all Phoenix?
-Yeah.
So as I zoom in, these blue dots,
a lot of them are camera feeds.
You can see all the cameras
we have on different buildings.
We have private businesses, Circle K’s,
gas stations, QT.
We have a school district.
So all the school distract cameras
feed in case there’s an incident going on.
We get out faster, we provide information,
we provide updates,
and we can get ground
units in first response.
-So there is no avoiding
the camera these days?
Uh, there’s some
but it’s getting smaller and smaller,
and we’re getting better and better
at what we do. So yeah, it’s good.
-So if you see someone, say right now
commit a crime here on the sidewalk
you’re getting out there immediately?
-Depends on the crime?
Does that make sense?
If this guy jay walks I’m not
going to call patrol out there
because that’s a minor
offense and the nonsense.
-What if he has foil
and is doing Fentanyl?
-Just depends,
I’m not gonna zoom in that much at this.
-Because we’re–
-He’s jay walking by the way.
-Oh, no.
-He’s close to the crosswalk.
I’ll tell you a lot of these things
and not that we don’t care about this
and the drug problem, and whatnot,
but the issue runs into
just manpower and police staffing.
Having it be so inundated
with all these things,
we don’t proactively go
out searching for stuff.
I don’t proactively look and go,
“Who’s smoking drugs? Who’s doing this?”
First off I don’t want to be
zooming in trying to do things
and possibly violate someone’s rights
but a lot of times
what we do is calls for service.
-What are the rights with this?
-It’s in a public area.
-In public, no expectation of privacy.
-So just like when I’m filming
in a public area it’s legit?
-Same concept.
-Same concept.
Once you go inside a door?
-Yeah, if we were to go in someone’s
building, it’s like even with our drones.
For us to go fly interior you have to have
your extenuating circumstance,
probable cause warrants, that fun stuff.
[drone buzzing]
[officer] For us, a smaller agency,
a helicopter program is
multi-million dollar a year.
This drone right here is what,
$12,000 $13,000 give or take.
-Oh, wow.
-So with that being said,
compared to a multi-million dollar
helicopter deal a year
you have one helicopter
versus the potential
of five to six drones on any shift
So we’re able to get things out
as well as some of our smaller stuff
I’ll show you here in a minute,
our smaller interior drones.
We are able to get inside houses for
warrants, barricades, things like that,
helicopter ain’t going in there
and this drone right here,
the drone itself, $500, $600,
I’mma tell you right now, I’d rather
$500, $600 than a team of officers
who are unknown potentially being
ambushed, or attacked, or shot.
-So technology is really
coming into policing quickly right now?
-100%.
-100%?
So you don’t need to fly a helicopter,
no need, just get this up there?
No, and the way we run and operate,
you’ll see Officer Ellis here,
we have extra batteries.
Everyone carries
around four to six batteries on them
and they have chargers in their vehicles.
They’re able to charge and refresh.
So you say a helicopter can last longer.
Quick comedown, battery change,
you’re back up in the air
and we’re able to do what we need to do.
-Does Officer Ellis have steady fingers
with his joystick here?
-[laughs] He is, he’s one of our best.
-I do.
We balance back and forth.
Myself and Officer Ellis,
we go back and forth for flight hours.
So in the agency
we kind of go back and forth flight hours
and it’s a running competition
we give each other a hard time about.
So he better have steady fingers.
-So this isn’t your normal drone
obviously, this is pretty serious?
-So this is…
I carry a Mavic 3 Thermal
in the truck and one of these drones,
the Avata for patrol use.
This is the Matrice 30.
It’s got a higher weather rating.
It’s waterproof,
it withstands the heat better.
We use this more for mega events.
Again, we’re attached to the SWAT team.
So every time the SWAT team goes out,
typically the two of us go out.
There will be an overwatch drone
and interior drone
that’s dispatched to every barricade,
every SWAT callout.
So we can broadcast in real time
what these drones are seeing
back to the SWAT commander and they can
see in their area of operations
where their team members are at,
what’s going on, and they have a live feed
back to their tablets in their vehicles,
or an iPad, or cell phone
on what’s going on.
-How’s your DA here?
‘Cause you can do all this work
all day long
but does your DA prosecute or is that a…
So no, we’re pretty supported, and again,
with that leverage of technology
and having especially the videos
and camera in there
it just helps our case
because you get a lot of situations where
people want to argue and fight it.
Think through the smallest level for us,
not even DA wise but think to
the level of civil traffic, right?
We get an accident and what happened?
“I had the green light.”
we play that video,
you’re going to give them a ticket
we can show them that video.
They don’t take it to court,
they don’t fight it.
Is policing in 10, 15 years just way less
manpower and way more technology?
I wouldn’t say that’s where it’s going.
The issue, again,
is with the political climate,
with everything going on nowadays,
less people want to be cops.
You’re finding less good candidates
because they don’t want
to deal with it anymore.
They don’t want to deal with
the nonsense we deal with.
-What’s the big nonsense you deal with?
Political and just the way things get
spun up in the media and that perception.
I tell people all the time…
I used to be a resource officer
and I’mma tell you there’s teachers
that aren’t good teachers
that shouldn’t be teaching.
There’s doctors out there doing
malpractice that shouldn’t be doctors.
The issue is they’re not
always in that limelight.
A thing happens
and that gets pushed aside
For some reason
we’re always in that limelight
and one bad cop’s
gonna make everyone a bad cop
and we gotta deal with that all the time.
In reality most people out here
are in the same thing.
We all have the same goal,
we wanna go home at the end of the night.
We have the same kind of mindset
and we want to do our job
and be successful
at keeping this community safe and…
-You have four kids, right?
-I have four kids, yes.
I always thought this was crazy
about police officers,
you kiss your wife goodbye
and you leave your kids.
You go out and deal with
society’s biggest problems.
-That might get physical.
-100%.
Then you have the scrutiny of,
like you were saying, the media.
There’s a spotlight on your job.
Then you gotta go home
and live your family life.
How do you balance all that?
So I will tell you
that’s one of the things I’ve learned
over my career of now 19 years.
It’s separating the two things.
This is a job.
This is a uniform, it comes off,
it’s a job at the end of the day.
In all reality to my son I’m a rockstar.
I’m his biggest hero.
I go out, I get bad guys, I do my thing,
to every young boy, that’s their dream.
Cops and robbers.
Again, to my daughters,
I get to go out and I’m the protector,
I’m this force and I get to come home
and now they not see me as just dad,
I’m a protector. I’m there.
Would you suggest your children
get into law enforcement?
Yes.
Okay.
Now is there things that would
make me nervous? 100% there is.
But that’s life.
In all reality that’s…
I can’t speak for everybody,
that’s something that I go through.
We keep a lot of open,
honest conversations in my house.
So they know there’s risk
but they also know the lifestyle we live,
the benefits of insurance and retirement,
and all these things we talk about,
and 100% I would.
But again, it goes back to
what we talked about earlier is where?
What agency? Where we at?
What’s the political climate?
-San Francisco?
-No.
No, again, I want them to be supported
and I will tell you in Glendale right here
with the community, with our city council,
with the people around us…
Do we have headaches? Yeah, 100%.
But we’re 100% supported.
We’re supported,
they care about us, we take care of them.
-That means everything, right?
-That means everything.
Do you think there’s gonna be
a trend in policing
where good new officers
go to the jurisdictions
where they’ll be supported
versus the ones they won’t be?
Hopefully because then
we’ll have enough officers over here.
Yeah, but it’s gonna create
an imbalance in policing?
Yeah, it potentially could.
-Policies equal realities, right?
-100%.
But what it comes down to
and anything else, it’s waves.
Political waves,
and you’ll have a couple bad years
a couple good years,
it happens throughout all of time.
-This mindset of defunding the police.
-I don’t think many people do anymore.
But there was that mindset for a while
and you actually need
to fund it more for training.
We get a lot of training, we’re
very cross trained with a lot of things
and that’s where I think we’re supported.
-I would say pay policemen more
but just get the best ones
you can and train really well.
-Quality.
-Wouldn’t that make sense?
-Yeah, that does make sense.
-Like with everything too.
With teaching or whatever position.
Vetted people that actually
want to be there, 100%.
[drone buzzing]
So you can see here we get a live feed
of his video and where he’s flying
as well as where he’s at on the map.
This will tell me where he’s at.
You’ll see there’s a crosshair here
that tells me what he’s looking for.
So for me in that unit or in the vehicle
and I’m trying to direct officers
to where he’s at
I now can see what he’s looking at,
where he’s at on the map,
and what his camera’s focused on.
So it’s not a matter of him going,
“Hey, what street is this?”
“Do I know what’s going on?”
You can see back here right now
he’s looking back at us.
He’s going to zoom in here,
I’ll make that a little bigger for us.
Wait till it clears up but there ya go.
That’s you right there.
There he is in the back of the vehicle.
-Right.
-But you can see he’s right there.
[Officer Ellis] We’re 300 feet up in the air
and a couple blocks away.
-Wow, what clarity.
-You can tell this parking lot here.
-That’s what’s showing that.
-That’s unbelievable.
So that shoots in 4k, that drone video.
It also has a split view of thermal.
Everything’s hot right now
but there’s a thermal view
as well split side by side.
[Officer Ellis] Here we are zoomed in
at almost 300 feet up in the air
and I can look at the back
of my ugly head from here
in great detail
-You’re not thinning too bad.
-[chuckling]
-[laughing]
-Aging like a fine wine, bud.
-You get over it, right?
-I already got over it a long time ago.
Now here’s a view of us
in the same location
that’s what the camera looks
like without the zoom function.
-Oh my God, that is crystal clear.
-Yes.
And we’re able to broadcast this
through our MDC tablets,
through anything
with an internet connection.
So a cell phone, an iPad,
everybody who has the link
has access to it and again–
-Is Phoenix doing it like this?
Phoenix is.
They partner with Drone Sense as well.
We actually trained all their pilots.
-[laughs]
-We did, there it is.
-How many years ago?
Honestly you know what,
the partnership we had,
so their struggle, again, political.
Their struggle was not community
but their council was kind of hesitant
on starting a drone program.
We had the buy in right away,
we got it started.
They were hesitant on rights,
what we can and can’t do with it.
We went out and actually helped them
with a big case,
got them some big wins on it
and when we did they saw the value in it
and came immediately and said,
“Hey, we’re gonna build a program.”
-Yeah, so my concern as a citizen is
we’re getting tracked
through our phones all the time,
our faces are showing up everywhere,
do we want to be China, right?
Where there’s facial recognition
everywhere on street posts
in some cities in China, right?
-That would be the fear of this stuff.
-For sure.
There always is that fear and that’s
the fear with a lot of the drone stuff
is what data
they’re taking and inputting.
We’re not running anything
through facial rec.
We’re not taking anything,
zooming, running through facial rec.
Officer Ellis doesn’t launch that drone
and just go willy nilly
checking it and looking in back yards
and doing things he’s
not supposed to be doing.
It’s calls for service,
it’s your bail outs, your foot pursuits,
it’s warrants, things like that.
You’re trying to look for stuff.
We’re not flying drones,
and violate people’s rights, and spy.
Okay, so this is our interior drone.
So again, this drone is purpose-built
for more cinematic stuff
and flying outside,
doing tricks and fun stuff.
But with that being said,
we are able to leverage it
and utilize technology ’cause of its size
and if you have
the other drone there, Jared.
See this drone when in front of you?
It’s fully caged.
I can take it inside, hit things,
bounce in off walls if need be,
fly it through objects and get around
and I’m able to put this
in tighter smaller spaces.
So I’ll have him put it out there
and give you a demonstration.
-I heard years ago
that you could cook eggs
on the concrete or the cement in Phoenix.
-I believe it.
-Yeah, today is…
-Cook Fentanyl on it.
-They’re cooking Fentanyl.
-Yeah, that’s’ what I’ve seen.
-Gotten away from eggs.
So we’ve had to put the camera
near the vent here
that’s why I’m all up in your space
if you don’t mind.
-It’s okay.
-All right.
Again, I have four kids,
I have no personal space left.
[laughs]
Gone years ago.
-Keep this thing from overheating.
-Back to the Future.
-Right.
-With that being said–
-Peter, you can take that iPad.
-And there you go.
-Okay.
All this thing does is react to the motion
of my hand on the controller.
[drone buzzing]
So as this comes through I will
get back over here a little bit to you.
[buzzing continues]
-I’ll try to see if I can get closer.
-Oh, that’s great.
So again…
So I’m going to fly through,
is that driver window down?
-Driver window? Give me a second.
-Okay.
-Is this a dream come true job?
-I love it.
Again, I’m flying toys
for the most part, you know?
-You’re good.
-Flying toys and utilizing it
to keep people safe.
So you can see precision-wise,
of flying this drone.
[buzzing continues]
Getting in here, moving it.
Being able to kind of occupy tight spaces
and fly it around.
If I come in here you can also see…
Again, I’ll come this way
a little bit for ya.
Close that door, Jared, right there.
[closes door]
[buzzing]
The next nice part about this is
with our tactical team
and some of our patrol teams
if I needed to come down and hand-land it
Jared’s right there,
I’m able to come here and Jared can…
[buzzing abruptly stops]
Take it, grab it, and get ready to go
to the next area, fly around.
When is the technology there
so you have the mass shooter guy
and he’s running away, and you can put
a stun gun on the drone or something?
When can you get the weapontry into the…
By our policy, and by rules
and regulations we can’t arm them.
We can’t arm them.
Now there’s 3D prints
where if you can imagine it
you can put them on
there and people build it.
You see things overseas, Ukraine, Russia,
there’s things you see that we can’t do.
Not that I do or don’t want to do it.
That eventually will be
a realistic thing at some point in time.
You know, especially with TASER
being local here in Arizona,
having a drone
with a built-in TASER into it.
Which could it be efficient? 100%.
Just depends on your pilot and skills
but having those right now, yeah,
that’s a long ways away.
I’m just enjoying
flying the regular drones.
[Officer Ellis] Quick turn over here.
North side of the street is Glendale.
We’re rolling into
the City of Phoenix here.
-Yeah, what’s this situation here?
-I don’t know.
Who’s cart?
[man speaking indistinctly]
Okay, that’s gotta go back to Walmart.
You know that, right?
So can’t conduct any business
as a store back here.
We’ve got a shopping cart
which belongs to Walmart.
Those things cost about $350 a piece.
-So this is Phoenix?
-Yeah.
-We’re two seconds
into the other city, right?
So you’re not gonna say it
and I totally respect you for it
but there is a difference
between Glendale and Phoenix.
-From what I’ve seen.
-100% yeah, there is.
You cross a line and it’s…
They’re doing the best with what they have
and they’re short-staffed and…
-Phoenix is more short-staffed than you?
-Yeah.
Look at all the trash down here.
If we walk through that,
that’s gonna be foil, and paraphernalia,
and straws, and all kinds of stuff.
I’m not saying we don’t have
those problems too, we absolutely do.
We are empowered
to take care of those issues
before they become bigger issues
and do proactive enforcement on it.
-Do you guys get along or is there beef?
-Absolutely. No.
We’ve worked events together,
we call them for help,
they call us for help on big scenes.
We’ve loaned equipment back and forth.
They’re wonderful to work with.
-This is one of your
favorite Mexican joints?
-Yes.
[Peter] So you work
with these guys, Elane?
I do, so Officer Ellis is in patrol.
I’m over the Glendale
Family Advocacy Center.
So I have our Special Victims Unit.
-A topic I didn’t bring up today
that I want to,
human trafficking, women trafficking,
is that a big deal
because I see it all over the country?
I would say it’s a hidden topic.
You could run into them right now
ordering food.
And so in the past we just didn’t know
what it really looked like.
-Okay.
We’ve moved beyond the days
of where we would see a victim…
What you would refer to as a prostitute
standing on the corner.
It’s not as obvious
but they’re actual victims.
What we focus on are the indicators
and trying to help the victims
get out of the life.
I actually have…
I have all Special Victims Unit,
I have Child Crimes.
Which we also investigate
internet crimes against children.
Which you would refer to
as child pornography.
-What’s going on with that right now?
So we get hotline tips through NCMEC,
the National Center
for Exploited Children.
We’ll get images of young children
and in the worst case scenario
that you can think about
and our detectives will investigate that.
I also have a Family Violence Unit.
Which is all domestic violence
and I also have Randy Randall,
he is my sex offender program manager.
-Okay.
-I monitor and check sex offenders
that move in and out of the city.
[Peter] Are there a lot of them?
There are…
I mean relative to the population, no.
But we got 500 that we track
in the city of Glendale right now.
Phoenix has like 3,500.
-State wide–
-Perspective.
Yeah, yeah.
-So when I go through,
say, the Navajo Nation, Northern Arizona,
you see signs
for human trafficking everywhere.
What could a human traffic subject
look like in every day
Phoenix, Glendale, Arizona?
Could it be someone
walking down the street
and they look free, and like they’re
living a normal life but they’re not or…
That sometimes is a misconception
because take labor trafficking
for instance.
They’re usually free to leave.
They’re provided with a cell phone.
However, their trafficker is
threatening their family and so they stay
because they’re afraid
something will happen to their family.
-Is this mostly illegals,
they have family south of the border,
and then the cartels have organized that?
Is that what you mean
by labor trafficking?
No, labor trafficking can be I could be,
you know, just have a couple kids
and hire Randy,
and only pay him $20 for a month,
and some people can confuse that
with wages, unfair wages.
This is actual coercion or threats
and these people get subjected
to very, very harsh conditions.
Like other crimes like aggravated assaults
and things like that.
-Thank you.
What’s your connection here, Dave?
I’m a police officer in Glendale.
We’re very lucky.
Our city allows for
two full-time labor release positions.
We’re a paramilitary organization
and so if these guys need something,
traditionally it’s gotta go officer,
sergeant, lieutenant,
commander, assistant chief, chief.
What I bring to the table is
I report directly to the chief.
So I can solve problems
quickly and efficiently with our chief.
We have a great relationship.
And so really my job is
to just kinda keep these guys supported
and solve problems.
-What would you say
the average person like myself
doesn’t understand about your guy’s work?
What you go through.
-What they don’t understand,
and I’ve been doing it for 20, 30 years,
is that we are just like anyone else.
We have families,
we have people who care about us,
we do goofy things,
we have a sense of humor.
We like the things
that other people like for hobbies.
We have officers from all types
of different backgrounds.
I know an officer,
his hobby is quilting… cross-stitch.
You know, you’d say
you’d never expect an officer to do that.
Clock… clock works.
-Somebody does something with hawks.
-Yeah.
-Falconry.
-Falconry.
Thank you, ma’am, ‘preciate ya.
-[Officer Ellis] The best part, here it is.
-[Peter] Oh, there ya go.
So what’s the name of this place?
[Officer Ellis] Senior Pollo.
-Senior Pollo?
It’s a brand new place here in Glendale.
-Last couple months, yeah.
It’s a very tender chicken.
It falls apart
which means it’s good, right?
[Officer Ellis] Yep.
Cooks it on a charcoal grill out there.
-Mmm.
Very nice, very nice.
Officer Ellis, how is that?
-Fantastic.
-Dave’s never gonna be the same.
-[laughs] This is a good size burrito.
So did you tell him
to call you Officer Ellis?
No, I told him to call me Jared but…
-Isn’t that respect, with the officer?
No, you’re such a nice guy.
Now I’m calling you Dave, sorry.
We started with Dave.
-No, I’m not–
-What do you guys like? Officer, right?
Why not take the respect?
-It’s nice but…
-Yeah, I’m fine with Dave.
-Yeah.
-You find a lot of meaning in the work?
-I do, I really do.
And I mean that truly.
-Is that why people do it?
I like to think so.
-Why do you do it do you think?
Why do I do it?
Um, it’s something that I’ve always
been drawn to, the camaraderie here,
and I don’t mean just in general
but in this line of work
is something you won’t find a lot of.
Um, I’ve gone through
some of the worst times in my life
working this job.
Through personal health crises
and other things.
and everybody in this department
has been there for me
and there isn’t a day that goes by
that somebody doesn’t check on you
or send you a text,
“Hey, how you doing?”, that kind of thing.
So what’s happened in policing…
I came back to the country in 2020.
I was out of the country for some time
and so a lot of things had changed.
and I saw this narrative,
this anti-policing narrative
sort of sweep over the country.
Being in 85 countries,
traveling to 85, living in 4,
I know what
really bad policing looks like.
So with that said, what percentage
give the bad name would you say?
That we saw in 2020,
like the bad name in policing.
That guy in high school
that everyone hated
that you knew he was gonna become a cop
and give everyone hell down the road.
Peter, it’s such a small percentage.
This is what I tell people,
I’ve been a cop for 23 years.
I was a school teacher.
I was a social worker.
In 23 years I’ve never heard an officer
that I work with off-duty, on-duty,
use the N word.
I’ve never heard an officer say
I’m gonna go out
and target a certain group of people.
I’ve never heard of
an officer taking a bribe
or the corruption that you see on TV.
I’ve never seen it.
What you tend to see is officers
who get involved in a use of force
and excessive force allegations.
These officers are trained, if you don’t
use enough force, you’re dead.
But if you use too much force, right?
You’re out of policy,
you can be sued, you can be prosecuted.
You’re always trying to walk
a line to use enough force
but we get sensitivity training.
We get training on racial profiling.
We get that training so often
that it’s just ingrained in us.
And if we knew an officer
that was doing those things–
-They wouldn’t last.
-We would be the first ones…
You wanna know something, Peter?
In our police department
we have investigators
who investigate officer misconduct
or policy violations.
More complaints come internally
by a factor of about ten.
By a factor of about ten,
it’s another officer
who’s identified a policy violation
or a supervisor
that initiates that complaint.
And so we police ourselves.
We would never allow for somebody
doing, you know, taking bribes,
corruption, and shaking people down.
-But it does help
to have a good chief too, right?
-Absolutely, yeah.
-Good leadership helps?
-Good leadership–
-Good people in general.
-And good officers want to come here.
-Right.
Good people want to
come work for Glendale.
We can be selective
and make sure we get the good candidates.
[jazz music playing]
-[Peter] So this is all Glendale?
-[Officer Ellis] This is.
Very stark difference
from where we were at this morning.
My typical area that I work
is Southside Glendale.
Again, higher crime,
lower income neighborhoods.
This is quite the opposite of that.
This is Arrowhead Lakes area.
-So they’re not dealing with
any of the problems we saw this morning?
-I mean there are definitely less
transient individuals
and I mean Fentanyl’s everywhere.
-I mean it just–
-In a neighborhood like this?
Could be,
just better at hiding it up here.
You know what I mean? I don’t know.
I would say that we don’t respond
to nearly as many
calls up here for that kind of thing.
So in Glendale, like most places,
it really matters the zip code you’re in?
It really does.
Well, anything else you want to tell us?
Learned a lot from you today.
I appreciate you coming out,
and telling our story,
and seeing our side.
We’re just people trying to do a job,
trying to do the best we
can with what he have.
-‘Preciate it, Officer Ellis.
-Thank you, Peter.
-And, uh–
-Jared.
Jared, okay.
-Thank you, Jared.
-Of course.
Thanks guys, for coming on that journey.
And again,
I just want to drive this point home,
most officers… or they can’t,
through the line of command
do something like this.
So what you did
and what your chief allowed us to do
is very uncommon these days.
We’re very, very lucky,
and very, very fortunate.
We have a lot of support from
our mayor, our city council,
our chief, our administration staff.
-And we just had an armed robbery.
-[laughs] Okay.
-So on that note…
-Thanks a lot.
-I’m gonna go.
-All right.
-Thanks, officer.
-Thank you.
-We’ll see you next time, take care.
-All right, sir, take care.
Thanks guys, for coming on that journey.
Until the next one.
[funky soul music playing]